The struggle for international copyright in the United States.

Date
1959
DOI
Authors
Bishop, Wallace Putnam
Version
OA Version
Citation
Abstract
The writer of this dissertation has attempted to do the following: first, to give a chronological history of the struggle for international copyright; second, to present a general description of the economic effects of the lack of international copyright on t he book industry, on the authors concerned, both British and American, and on the American people; third, to determine who favored and who opposed international copyright, and why they did so; fourth, to discover the reasons that the United States delayed so long in adopting copyright for foreigners; and fifth, to establish those causes which eventually led t o the enactment of international copyright laws. In 1790 the United States passed its first copyright act. However, this act did not allow American copyright to foreign authors. It was not until 1836 that there was any important agitation for altering this situation. The first serious att empt to obtain copyright for foreigners came early in 1837, when Henry Clay introduced an international copyright bill in the Senate. This was the real beginning of the struggle. It continued until March, 1891, when Congress passed the Platt-Simonds Bill, the first American international copyright measure. [TRUNCATED]
Description
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University
License
Based on investigation of the BU Libraries' staff, this work is free of known copyright restrictions.